Weekly News Update

*In a 28-page decision, the Second Circuit overturned two insider trading convictions against the former hedge fund traders Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson. Citing the trial judge’s “erroneous” instructions to jurors, the court not only reversed the convictions but threw out the case altogether. [NY Times]

*A Florida group’s efforts to free a chimpanzee fell short when the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Albany upheld a lower court’s decision that found that such animals aren’t entitled to basic legal rights. [USA Today]

*Minority students at three prestigious law schools say they want to delay final exams because they’ve been busy protesting grand jury decisions in the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, and haven’t had time to study. [Newsday]

*Officials with the Supreme Court are trying to find a New York man who successfully petitioned to be heard by the high court, only to seemingly disappear. Bobby Chen, who is representing himself, has until Dec. 22 to respond to the court. [Raw Story]

*The City Council passed two bills on Monday that will make it easier for transgender New Yorkers to change the sexual designation on their birth certificate. [Capital New York]

*A New York appeals court threw out investor Ron Perelman’s lawsuit against his art dealer, Larry Gagosian, this week. The suit — which accused Gagosian of tricking Perelman into spending $4 million on a Popeye sculpture — was billed as “the feud that’s shaking gallery walls” in The New York Times. In reality, the appellate division of the New York Supreme Court found that Perelman didn’t have much of an argument. [Business Insider]

*The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to examine the terms of a multibillion-dollar settlement agreement established in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The action by the court was announced in a brief order without further explanation. [Alaska Dispatch News]